The Very Small Person Part 9

"S'posing the cars run off the track so she can't?" Daisy said, cheerfully.

"She'll come," Murray rejoined, with the decision of faith. "She promised, I said."

"S'posing she's killed 'most dead?"

"She'll come."

"_Puffickly_ dead--s'posing?"

Murray took time, but even here his faith in the Promise stood its ground, though the ground shook under it. Sheelah had taught him what a promise was; it was something not to be shaken or killed even in a railroad wreck.

"When anybody promises, _they do it_," he said, st.u.r.dily. "She promised an' she'll come."

"Then her angel will have to come," remarked the older, girl child, coolly, with awful use of the indicative mood.

When the half-hour was over and Murray at liberty, he went in to the clock and stood before it with hands a-pocket and wide-spread legs. A great yearning was upon him to know the mystery of telling time. He wished--oh, how he wished he had let Sheelah teach him! Then he could have stood here making little addition sums and finding out just how long it would be till night. Or he could go away and keep coming back here to make little subtraction sums, to find out how much time was left _now_--and now--and now. It was dreadful to just stand and wonder things.

Once he went up-stairs to his own little room out of the nursery and sat down where he had always sat when Sheelah unlaced him, before he had begun to unlace himself, and stood up where he had always stood when Sheelah unb.u.t.toned him. He sat very still and stood very still, his grave little face intent with imagining. He was imagining how it would be when _she_ did it. She would be right here, close--if he dared, he could put out his hand and smooth her. If he _dared_, he could take the pins out of her soft hair, and hide in it--

He meant to dare!

"Little silly," perhaps she would call him; perhaps she would remember to kiss him good-night. And afterwards, when the lark was over, it would stay on, singing in his heart. And he would lie in the dark and love Her.

For Her part, it was a busy day enough and did not lag. She did her shopping and called on a town friend or two. In the late afternoon she ran in to several art-stores where pictures were on exhibition.

It was at the last of these places that she chanced to meet a woman who was a neighbor of hers in the suburbs.

"Why, Mrs. Cody!" the neighbor cried. "How delightful! You've come in to see Irving, too?"

"No," with distinct regret answered Murray's mother, "but I wish I had! I'm only in for a little shopping."

"Not going to stay! Why, it will be _wicked_ to go back to-night--unless, of course, you've seen him in Robespierre."

"I haven't. Cicely Howe has been teasing me to stop over and go with her. It's a 'sure-enough' temptation, as Fred says. Fred's away, so that part's all right. Of course there's Murray, but there's also Sheelah--" She was talking more to herself now than to the neighbor.

The temptation had taken a sudden and striking hold upon her. It was the chance of a lifetime. She really ought--

"I guess you'll stop over!" laughed the neighbor. "I know the signs."

"I'll telephone to Sheelah," Murray's mother decided, aloud, "then I'll run along back to Cicely's. I've always wanted to see Irving in that play."

But it was seven o'clock before she telephoned. She was to have been at home at half-past seven.

"That you, Sheelah? I'm not coming out to-night--not until morning.

I'm going to the theatre. Tell Murray I'll bring him a present. Put an extra blanket over him if it comes up chilly."

She did not hang up the receiver at once, holding it absently at her ear while she considered if she ought to say anything else to Sheelah. Hence she heard distinctly an indignant exclamation.

"Will you hear that, now! An' the boy that certain! 'She's promised,'

he says, an' he'll kape on 'She's-promising' for all o' me, for it's not tell him I will! He can go to slape in his poor little boots, expectin' her to kape her promise!"

The woman with the receiver at her ear uttered a low exclamation. She had not forgotten the Promise, but it had not impressed her as anything vital. She had given it merely to comfort Little Silly when he cried. That he would regard it as sacred--that it _was_ sacred--came to her now with the forcible impact of a blow. And, oddly enough, close upon its heels came a remembrance picture--of a tiny child playing with his soldiers on the floor. The sunlight lay over him--she could see it on his little hair and face. She could hear him talking to the "Captain soldier." She had at the time called it a sermon, with a text, and laughed at the child who preached it. She was not laughing now.

"Lissen, Cappen Sojer, an' I'll teach you a p'omise. A p'omise--a p'omise--why, when anybody p'omises, _they do it!_"

Queer how plainly she could hear Little Silly say that and could see him sitting in the sun! Just the little white dress he had on--tucks in it and a dainty edging of lace! She had recognized Sheelah's maxims and laughed. Sheelah was stuffing the child with notions.

"If anybody p'omises, they do it." It seemed to come to her over the wire in a baby's voice and to strike against her heart. This mother of a little son stood suddenly self-convicted of a crime--the crime of faithlessness. It was not, she realized with a sharp stab of pain, faith in _her_ the little child at the other end of the line was exercising, but faith in the Promise. He would keep on "She-promising" till he fell asleep in his poor little boots--

"Oh!" breathed in acute distress the mother of a little son. For all unexpectedly, suddenly, her house built of cards of carelessness, flippancy, thoughtlessness, had fallen round her. She struggled among the flimsy ruins.

Then came a panic of hurry. She must go home at once, without a moment's delay. A little son was waiting for her to come and put him to bed. She had promised; he was waiting. They were to have a regular little lark--that she remembered, too, with distinctness. She was almost as uncertain as Murray had been of the meaning of a "lark"; she had used the word, as she had used so many other words to the child, heedlessly. She had even and odd, uncertain little feeling as to what it meant to put a little son to bed, for she had never unlaced or unb.u.t.toned one. She had never wanted to until now. But now--she could hardly wait to get home to do it. Little Silly was growing up--the bare brown s.p.a.ce between the puffs of his little trousers and the top rims of his little socks were widening. She must hurry, hurry! What if he grew up before she got there! What if she never had a chance to put a little son to bed! She had lost so many chances; this one that was left had suddenly sprung into prominence and immense value. With the shock of her awakening upon her she felt like one partially paralyzed, but with the need upon her to rise and walk--to _run_.

She started at once, scarcely allowing herself time to explain to her friend. She would listen to no urgings at all.

"I've got to go, Cicely--I've promised my little son," was all she took time to say; and the friend, knowing of the telephone message, supposed it had been a telephone promise.

At the station they told her there was another train at seven-thirty, and she walked about uneasily until it came. Walking about seemed to hurry it along the rails to her.

Another woman waited and walked with her. Another mother of little sons, she decided whimsically, reading it in the sweet, quiet face.

The other woman was in widow's black, and she thought how merciful it was that there should be a little son left her. She yielded to an inclination to speak.

"The train is late," she said. "It must be."

"No." The other woman glanced backward at the station clock. "It's we who are early."

"And in a hurry," laughed Murray's mother, in the relief of speech.

"I've got to get home to put my little son to bed! I don't suppose you are going home for that?"

The sweet face for an instant lost its quietness. Something like a spasm of mortal pain crossed it and twisted it. The woman walked away abruptly, but came back. "I've been home and--put him to bed," she said, slowly--"in his last little bed."

Then Murray's mother found herself hurrying feverishly into a car, her face feeling wet and queer. She was crying.

"Oh, the poor woman!" she thought, "the poor woman! And I'm going home to a little live one. I can cover him up and tuck him in! I can kiss his little, solemn face and his little, brown knees. Why haven't I ever kissed his knees before? If I could only hurry! Will this car ever start?" She put her head out of the window. An oily personage in jumpers was pa.s.sing.

"Why don't we start?" she said.

"Hot box," the oily person replied, laconically.

The delay was considerable to a mother going home to put her little child to bed. It seemed to this mother interminable. When at length she felt a welcome jar and lurch her patience was threadbare. She sat bolt upright, as if by so doing she were helping things along.

It was an express and leaped ahead splendidly, catching up with itself. Her thoughts leaped ahead with it. No, no, he would not be in bed. Sheelah was not going to tell him, so he would insist upon waiting up. But she might find him asleep in his poor little boots!

She caught her breath in half a sob, half tender laugh. Little Silly!

But if an express, why this stop? They were slowing up. It was not time to get to the home station; there were no lights. Murray's mother waylaid a pa.s.sing brakeman.

"What is it? What is it?"

"All right, all right! Don't be scairt, lady! Wreck ahead somewheres--freight-train. We got to wait till they clear the track."

But the misery of waiting! He might get tired of waiting, or Sheelah might tell him his mother was not coming out to-night; he might go to bed, with his poor little faith in the Promise wrecked, like the freight on there in the dark. She could not sit still and bear the thought; it was not much easier pacing the aisle. She felt a wild inclination to get off the train and walk home.